Wet Sanding Wood for a Smooth Finish

What's the easiest way to remove the poly finish from the fretboard, on a maple neck?
I'd like to remove all the poly and darken the pale maple finish.
Couldn't I just use Old English?
I heard that someone had great result with that, but I don't want a sticky fretboard.
Is there a simple dye I can use to darken it? I really don't want to wait days for it to dry.

Saw a video for a trick to avoid sanding through. He lightly sprayed a colour over the clear coat. Used wet sanding to take away the color so as to see the material he took off. Is that something you'd recommend doing? Is there a type of paint you can't do this trick with? Love to know your thoughts about it?

Nice technique with the exception of skin contaminants moving into the wood pours with each water application.. consider wearing gloves for a finer outcome

Jake Gyllenhaal and Christian Bale's mouth had a baby

Hello! Thank you for your video! I have a question. Would wet sanding work on a guitar that has multiple layers of satin finish over acrylic artwork? I am working to get a high shine on a guitar I’m working on start to finish.

I like the piece in the background of the thumbnail.

I've been wet-sanding my birdhouse with tung oil for the purpose of waterproofing.

I wait 72 hours between each coat and use a finer grit each time.

Do you think the finer grit will aid in sealing the wood? Or is it 6 of 1?

Have you tried other fluids as a lubricant on wood? I have been making wood and epoxy box tops and coasters as learning pieces in preparation for a large wood/epoxy table top. I use almost exclusively hard, oily woods like rosewoods, etc. The scratch pattern from random orbit sanders on both the epoxy and the wood is excellent when sanded wet. No stray large scratches. I first raise the grain with one light application of water. Then I'm using the final oil finish as sanding lube through 600 grit, but its pretty thick, tends to gum up with the sanding dust. I'm wet sanding the raw wood and epoxy surface as I would sand a clear coat finish. Maybe applying mineral sprints or alcohol from a spray bottle? Any suggestions?

Nice. Im gonna try it on my next project

Came here for my guitar 🤙🏽🤙🏽

I gotta politely disagree a little bit. Wet-sanding WORKS on BARE WOOD not from the "lubrication", but from the swelling of the wood fibers. When you dry-sand, the wood fibers compact down pretty quickly.

On finished or painted wood, then correct, the lubrication comes into play.

Never occured to me to apply poly with fine-grit sandpaper (!) Should have done that on my Partscaster a few years ago; will definitely try it on the slab door table top currently in my shop.

Hey Brad. Love your videos. Extremely helpful! I am in the process of spray painting guitar metallic silver. Last coat I have orange peel. Should I wet sand. Wait to dry and paint again then clear coat seal? Thanks for your help!!!

So why do people say to leave the wet sandpaper in water for 24 hours?

I decided to take an old shelf out of my garage and clean it up to bring in the house.. I sanded it real nice and went and bought stain and clear gloss spray lacquer thinking it would be easy peezy.. but after investigating on applying stain I came to the conclusion that I didn't need stain so I decided to just spray the lacquer and after countless videos and reading I have learned something very important about all this.. You can never learn everything there is to learn about all this stuff 🤦😑 I'm in over my head.

Hi Brad, your channel is amazing!! I have a question. After I wet sanded raw wood, and im satisfied enough to go with sanding sealer, what do you suggest for final cleaning of the wood? I have some lighter fluid, can that do the trick?
Keep up the good work! :)

Hey bro ... i wanna ask.. my wood get black stain after i wet sanding it... can yo suggest a way on how to remove it?

So I’ve sanded then primed and painted my guitar with acrylic paint and now I’ve applied mod podge, should I sand over this to smooth it out?

Hey Brad angove love your stuff been watching you for the last year, think you could do a video on repairing clear coat that's been brushed onto a guitar body over paint? Would like to attempt to polish it there are clear brush stroke lines and bristles from the brush stuck within it

I just discovered this channel but I have a number of questions, so I'm making myself a coffee table and 2 end tables, I'm probably not even painting them correctly, but I'm basically at the clear coat, and I'm using a spray can, it's coming out bumpy, what's the best way to fix that? Also would i be better off rolling stuff from a can on? I'm trying to stretch it out a little more, I have a pretty kick ass idea and I might be able to sell a few coffee tables and end tables, but I need a quality finish

Thanks Brad! Been really getting good help from your videos! Very helpful and informative! Really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experience with all this!

Fk your intro

333

What about wet sanding primed wood? Can spray painted some wood today and it has a sandy texture. I want to remove that sandy feel before applying top coat.

Thank you Brad your video just helped give me the confidence to wet sand! Thumbs up! 😉

How do u prep basswood for enamel paint I can't get a smooth surface

Haven't tried this but my brain is telling me wouldn't the grain readjust itself as the little bit of water evaporates after you finish your wet sand? I would think that as the wood dries, the grain could become unsmooth...am I wrong?

+Brad Angove can you paint on water-based acrylic as a guitar finish? I saw a guy (DIY Gene) do it & it came out well. He got some orange peel cuz he didn't wet sand. Can you wet sand water-based acrylic? If so, do you wet sand the finish after tru oiling it, or before clearcoating it with tru oil? Great video

Can you use Mineral Spirits instead of water, so it dries out quicker?

I did it and it worked great. Listen to this man he knows what he is talking about. Thanks Bro, you are the man.

I use a little liquid soap and water wet dry finish sandpaper that I buy from an auto parts store and use it to smooth out Lacquer finish, it works great.

What grit of sandpaper did you use

What kind of sandpaper are you using? It looks like a scouring pad.

Wet dye, raised grain, sanding, clear-coats.
Takes me back to my uncles rifle-stock re-finishing.
He would take a piece, rough sand it to cut into fresh wood, wet-dye it to bring out raise the grain, then give it a moderate clear-coat.
After fully dry, a light wet sanding to knock off all the high spot.
Then another dye job, this time a different shade of the first color.
The second bit of dye will penetrate the wood only where sanding has cut through the clear-coat.
Wet sanding until glossy, clear-coat for sealing and final finish.
He had some light blonde burl that had fantastic patterns in the grain, if you could see it!
This brought out very nice contrast.
BTW, he made his own mirror-bright sand paper out of the 'horse tail' plant.
He would split the wet stalks length-wise and lay them out pulpy side down onto Kraft paper backing, with a little thinned wood-glue to hold it together. Had to keep them from curling when they dry!
Dry sanding only, this stuff could make a mirror of bare wood!

thanks fella!

Hi Brad I require your expertise! I am making a guitar with a dark, highly figured walnut top and a light ash body. I want to paint the back and sides black because I don't think the light ash matches the dark walnut. I'm worried that a straight black line into walnut might look a bit too jarring so I'm thinking about doing some binding but that will restrict how I can carve the body and I don't think I have the time. Do you think black into dark walnut will look ok? Or is there a 'classy' way to make the transition easier on the eye? Help is much appreciated. I'm doing tests on offcuts so I can make sure it looks good before jumping in...

A common application for wet sanding that was not mentioned is sanding while applying an oil finish as a grain filler for open grain woods. Not only will grain be filled and handsomely accentuated, but will develop an extremely smooth surface and sheen.

Can't wait to see the next video!

Hey Brad completely different subject....have you ever used gold, silver, or copper leaf on a finish?

Good video. Another application for intentionally raising the grain to sand it off is if you're going to color the guitar (or any other wood) with a water-based dye. Raise the grain with water, sand, apply the dye, and now you don't have to worry about losing color sanding off the grain that otherwise would have been raised by the application of the water-based dye.

I spray the wood with a bit of water to bring up the grain, then sand.
on my tru oil finishes I do a sand with BLO from 250 to 800 pver a few days leave it for a month then sand the first coat of tru in at a 1000 them apply as normal.
crimson oil I dont bother with BLO.

always good content here !

Hi Brad, did you go to a finishing school to learn your craft? Again thanks for the informative video.

awesome vid, I feel like ppl need to learn the value of your videos, alot of the things you do can be used on other wood projects. ppl need to do some learning lol, greetings from a fellow Brad!